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Canada had record wild fires in 2023 and now I’m wondering how this effect will snowball.

steve_adams_86 3y ago
I am too. I think Canadians need to treasure their forests and should be seriously concerned by what’s happening. Our current reforestation efforts aren’t enough, and they’re largely driven to support future logging activity, not restore ecology.
TheRealPomax 3y ago
And yet, if we look at the numbers, wildfires are actually nowhere near as bad as they were in the 90's: https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/data/charts/NFDB_stats_chart.png https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/data/charts/NFDB_stats_chart.p... I'd like a ban on people going outside and causing wild fires like we had in 2020 though. That was a good year.
- lazyasciiart 3y ago
  Nope - your chart only shows up to 2021. Wildfires are actually much much worse than the 90s. “This year’s fires have now burned more than double the previous record of 7.1 million hectares torched in 1995” https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/23/mapping-the-scale-of-canadas-record-wildfires https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/23/mapping-the-scale-o...
- stormbrew 3y ago
  17.577 million hectares have burned so far this year. If 2023 were on that graph it would be a skyscraper towering over every big fire year in the 80s and 90s. This year is unprecedented. And it isn't even over yet and the fires are still burning.
  - standardUser 3y ago
    But what does that say about the long term trend? Is 2023 an anomaly skewing the data, or does the data actually show a trend of increasing wildfires?
pvaldes 3y ago
If I'm not wrong, Canada had record wildfires in a very curious set of years.
- alex_duf 3y ago
  What so you mean by curious?
  - pauldenton 3y ago
    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-66612781 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-66612781 Need to wait and see if there's any charges brought forward for Arson
  - pvaldes 3y ago
    See it by yourself https://globalnews.ca/news/8045796/canada-wildfires-yearly-trends/ https://globalnews.ca/news/8045796/canada-wildfires-yearly-t...
    - pvaldes 3y ago
      The interesting graphic is the area burnt by year. If we take the years with more than 3 million hectares burnt we have some "specially hot years" falling over yearly average. This set includes: 94-95 Crimean referendum to choose between Russia or Ukraine 98 Russian financial default, start of the Yeltsin demise Ukrainian presidential elections of 1994, 2004, 2010 and 2014 (but curiously not 2019). Would be specially interesting to check if the wildfires happened after or before the elections. 2013-2014 Euromaidan. Russia anexionates Crimea. Start of the Dombas war. 2017 This is an outlier. The year of Voronenkow saying that Crimean annexation was illegal and fleeing the Duma before to be assasinated. The year of Petya also. We could probably add 2023 to this list at the end of the year In the country with the second largest expatriate Ukrainian population. Most probably happened by random (and I'm surely cherry-picking) but still a curious chain of events. I assume that the data shown in this graph is correct (I could be wrong about this). 2020 is also interesting. People at home = no wildfires
      - 3y ago
dendrite9 3y ago
https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/05/wildfire-smoke-from-australia-fueled-three-year-super-la-nina/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/05/wildfire-smoke-from-... This article about Austailian fires making the recent years' la nina stronger was interesting.

I am too. I think Canadians need to treasure their forests and should be seriously concerned by what’s happening. Our current reforestation efforts aren’t enough, and they’re largely driven to support future logging activity, not restore ecology.

TheRealPomax 3y ago

And yet, if we look at the numbers, wildfires are actually nowhere near as bad as they were in the 90's: https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/data/charts/NFDB_stats_chart.png https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/data/charts/NFDB_stats_chart.p... I'd like a ban on people going outside and causing wild fires like we had in 2020 though. That was a good year.

lazyasciiart 3y ago
Nope - your chart only shows up to 2021. Wildfires are actually much much worse than the 90s. “This year’s fires have now burned more than double the previous record of 7.1 million hectares torched in 1995” https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/23/mapping-the-scale-of-canadas-record-wildfires https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/23/mapping-the-scale-o...
stormbrew 3y ago
17.577 million hectares have burned so far this year. If 2023 were on that graph it would be a skyscraper towering over every big fire year in the 80s and 90s. This year is unprecedented. And it isn't even over yet and the fires are still burning.
- standardUser 3y ago
  But what does that say about the long term trend? Is 2023 an anomaly skewing the data, or does the data actually show a trend of increasing wildfires?

pvaldes 3y ago

If I'm not wrong, Canada had record wildfires in a very curious set of years.

alex_duf 3y ago
What so you mean by curious?
- pauldenton 3y ago
  https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-66612781 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-66612781 Need to wait and see if there's any charges brought forward for Arson
- pvaldes 3y ago
  See it by yourself https://globalnews.ca/news/8045796/canada-wildfires-yearly-trends/ https://globalnews.ca/news/8045796/canada-wildfires-yearly-t...
  - pvaldes 3y ago
    The interesting graphic is the area burnt by year. If we take the years with more than 3 million hectares burnt we have some "specially hot years" falling over yearly average. This set includes: 94-95 Crimean referendum to choose between Russia or Ukraine 98 Russian financial default, start of the Yeltsin demise Ukrainian presidential elections of 1994, 2004, 2010 and 2014 (but curiously not 2019). Would be specially interesting to check if the wildfires happened after or before the elections. 2013-2014 Euromaidan. Russia anexionates Crimea. Start of the Dombas war. 2017 This is an outlier. The year of Voronenkow saying that Crimean annexation was illegal and fleeing the Duma before to be assasinated. The year of Petya also. We could probably add 2023 to this list at the end of the year In the country with the second largest expatriate Ukrainian population. Most probably happened by random (and I'm surely cherry-picking) but still a curious chain of events. I assume that the data shown in this graph is correct (I could be wrong about this). 2020 is also interesting. People at home = no wildfires
    - 3y ago

dendrite9 3y ago

https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/05/wildfire-smoke-from-australia-fueled-three-year-super-la-nina/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/05/wildfire-smoke-from-... This article about Austailian fires making the recent years' la nina stronger was interesting.